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Welcome to Drivers' Union East Midlands.
Our Mission: Better road safety at lower cost. No unnecessary delay or slowing of road transport. No unnecessary or unjust prosecution of safe drivers.

Motorists & Drivers' Union is at www.driversunion.co


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Friday 28 March 2014

Drug driving:Open letter to Robert Goodwill


Proposed drug driving regulations for 2014. 



Dear Mr Goodwill,

I wrote to you recently, and in furtherance of our meeting when you were in shadow transport, to introduce our voluntary work for road safety and drivers.

You didn't acknowledge the email but I know you are very busy.

I have just been reading and digesting all of the publication in respect of drugs driving and the consultation process too.

I note that we were not included as consulted on your list. Had we been, I would have reminded you that after 300 billion driver miles a year, there's less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home and five times less than from NHS failures, about five times less than from breast cancer and some thirty seven times less than from smoking.

 Basically all I would've done, had I been consulted, is ask: 'Why are we having this consultation?' and 'Why aren't we testing doctors and nurses or people in their kitchens?' Fair questions aren't they?

I suppose every department of government must be seen to be interfering with something but is Government saying that only road death matters then?

Why is it that no matter the political colour of a minister, their brains seem to get taken over when they arrive at the DfT?

Can you ensure then that before anyone is prosecuted the NHS serves notice on all patients who may be affected or is that too much to ask?

I don't suppose you will answer but I did enjoy putting this on my Blog for the world to see.

Best wishes
Keith Peat

Ministry of Health's Dame Sally forgets being dead ain't very healthy

In this report medical-officer-annual-report-surveillance-volume-2012 Just published, The Government's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Dame Sally Davies, without a lot of imagination or thought, recommends road cycling as a good alternative to obesity.

My followers won't be surprised at my response to this nonsense but I am sure that the DoH ministers, to whom I have now written, will now have some food for thought. Here's my letter.  


Dear Mr Hunt,


I am very concerned about Dame Sally's recommendation that road cycling is a good alternative to obesity and health issues.
For a start obesity is more about diet, lack of school sports, outside play, sedentary computer games and so on but although, on the face of it, road cycling for children is a good answer, especially to get to school, in reality, it is very ill conceived and highly dangerous. There are much safer ways of getting good all round exercise.

Let's actually look at what road cycling entails. It is placing one's unprotected body, on a slender metal frame on two flimsy wheels amongst and mingling with many large pieces of fast moving essential machinery, operated by complete strangers, of varying ability and mental capacity. Would humans normally wish to do that if it weren't cycling? How on earth can such a concept be healthy?

Perhaps the ongoing claims and demands for massive changes on our roads and to vehicles as well as more driver prosecution and liability is, in itself, a confirmation that not only is the concept dangerous, but that we are failing to acknowledge that it is by impossibly addressing the wrong answers too.

I have compiled two web pages where you can see for yourselves how dangerous and unhealthy road cycling actually is. The first http://bit.ly/HSkRAS (I update these continuously) and in one example one head teacher lost two students in two entirely separate road accidents. I ask 'Could that head teacher seriously recommend road cycling for kiddies now?' Can you in all seriousness?

On this page http://bit.ly/1e900Cq I focus on the road accidents injuries and deaths of top cyclists to show that, the more one does it, the more chance of being maimed and killed.How can the DoH ignore the concept, deaths and injuries of cyclists in recommending road cycling?
I don't suppose Dame Sally will now alter her advice, unless of course she accepts some culpability for death and injury of those who act on it.
WishesKeith Peat.

Our ref: DE00000852680
Dear Mr Peat,

Thank you for your correspondence of 28 March to Jeremy Hunt, copied to Dan Poulter and Jane Ellison about the safety of cycling for children. I have been asked to reply.
I note your concerns about the dangers of cycling and the importance of children having a safe environment in which to exercise.

Public Health England (PHE) is the national organisation responsible for improving public health outcomes and recently launched a consultation called, ‘Developing a national physical activity approach’ which you may wish to contribute to directly. Details of how to do so can be found at the following link: Public Health Consultation.

If you have any further concerns you may wish to contact PHE directly. Contact details can be found on PHE’s website www.phe.org.uk  PHE

I hope this reply is helpful.

Yours sincerely,

Tim Marshall
Ministerial Correspondence and Public Enquiries
Department of Health
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Please do not reply to this email. To contact the Department of Health, please visit the 'Contact DH' section on the GOV.UK website.

Tuesday 25 March 2014

UK drivers boxed in?

'There is no need for drivers to just accept the bullying and oppression if they unite with the intention to change things. Not only are they the largest single issue group but without drivers, our society would collapse too.'

Green anti driver ideologists in an unholy alliance with the profiteers of the road safety industry to screw drivers?

Far fetched? A conspiracy theory?  It would be more far fetched and unrealistic to not believe in it wouldn't it?

Just look at all the anti driver vested interests that we have identified, mostly lobby groups based on a green agenda all calling for the curtailing, hampering, slowing, prosecution of drivers including more reasons to jail drivers and for longer too. See  The vested interests. and Brake & Direct Line and An example of charity money

Now look at some companies who, the driver being their bread and butter, should be supporting drivers. See Firms to avoid but add to all this the motor industry itself. 

We tried to alert drivers to the 22 new reasons to take their cars off the roads See it here, none listened to us but the motor industry rubbed its hands in glee. If government insisted we have parachutes fitted to our cars, why would the motor industry object to a new profit stream?


60 MPH motorways, not for accidents but environment and the same with zoning whole areas at twenty. Again not where accidents are happening but purely for environment. So drivers are now to be prosecuted for not being green enough not for being at all dangerous.

Look at the money grabbing anti driver councils. Parking & Yellow boxes.

All this anti driver activity is either for profit or ideology and we have now established links with honours and awards being given to anti driver green lobbyists simply because their activities provide more business for the profiteers. See what hope for profitless road safety? and See about the honours and Here the DfT reveal their honours promotions.

So now do you believe that concerted anti driver conspiracy is just a theory?

What our work is revealing is that UK's 35 million drivers are on their own.  Between the green anti driver movement on the one hand and the motor industry, and the road safety and speeding industry too. It's big. Very big but 35 million is a lot of people and a very large voting bloc and in addition the whole population and its industries depend on drivers too.

There is no need for drivers to just accept the bullying, oppression and profiteering if they unite with the intention to change things. Not only are they the largest single issue group but without drivers, our society would collapse too.

So let's start changing things. Avoid firms and associations that don't put drivers first in all things.
For example what has Fair Fuel Uk achieved for drivers so far? Since they were formed fuel costs have steadily risen haven't they? But they could support drivers in so many other ways. The Tax Payers Alliance?
Where are they on the issues that affect UK's biggest tax paying group when it comes to driver treatment?

One way to start making a change is to register for free with Drivers' Union but also follow us on Twitter @DriverUnion and @EastMidsDrivers . Get others to do so and re-tweet our posts.

Watch out for any demos and initiatives that you can be involved with. Is your driving important to you? It is? Then help us to make it easier, less of a worry, less of a risk and safer for all. 


Monday 24 March 2014

The Danes agree. Raise limits, less speeders & accidents.

News from Denmark…

The Danes have just released results
of a 2 year study on two way rural
roads, where they increased the
speed limit from 80 km/h to 90 km/h.

In the study, accidents on the roads
tested reduced.

On sections of motorway where the
speed limit was raised from 110 to
130 km/h nine years ago, fatalities
have also decreased.

What the Danish road directorate
discovered was that the traffic that
had been traveling below the speed
limit sped up a bit, and those who
previously broke the speed limit
were less tempted to break the
90km/h one.

To begin with, the Danish police
were not keen on the idea...

Erik Mather, a senior Danish Police
Traffic officer, said: "The police were
perhaps a little biased on this issue,
but we have had to completely
change our view now the experiment
has been trialled for two years."

There is other evidence that not
treating drivers like automatons who
should blindly obey signs works in
terms of safety.

In European cities where all "road
furniture" and signage has been
removed in urban areas, drivers have
been found to automatically slow
down when they can see pedestrians,
cyclists and children may be sharing
the same space as them.

I think what’s obvious from the Danish
experiment is that if you remove
frustration from a driver’s immediate
experience, they will drive more
considerately.

Sunday 23 March 2014

Why was this driver arrested when unfit to comment?

Depriving a person of their liberty always was and still is a very serious matter. There should never be routine speculative arresting at all.

Keith Peat 2014.

See story here. Now in this later report the driver had also been arrested for being over the limit. Updated story. That arrest is totally valid, but why also on suspicion of dangerous driving too at this stage?

Why are drivers routinely arrested after these terrible events when they too are in shock and unfit to answer? And why this one?

Robbers, murderers, burglars aren't arrested on mere suspicion but when a considerable amount of evidence is already established. Arrest of drivers can always come later but do we really think they are in the best state to comment? It's the police working to their own convenience and the likelihood of getting an incriminating comment. This driver faces jail for his comments.

In this story a man was Kept in custody and then it wasn't the diver! Clearly proving the police are just trawling for evidence

Any lawyer would advise drivers to only satisfy their identity and refuse to comment further under these circumstances. Police cannot continue to hold drivers once identity is confirmed.

Society condones this highly dangerous scenario then looks for scapegoats when it goes wrong.

Saturday 22 March 2014

Driver innocent but bereaved still want revenge.

Story here.

This story is astounding and drivers must pay heed to what it says between the lines.

'Accident investigators were unable to prove that the accident had been caused by bad driving'.

So why was the driver charged in the first place then tried anyway?

But 'Unable to prove that the accident was caused by bad driving' ? How anti driver is that? How about: 'There was no evidence of bad driving'?

Then yet again the bereaved not happy with the driver being innocent, want the accident laws made even easier to jail drivers than they are already. To do that the community has been saddled with yet another anti driver charity and no doubt the road safety industry money go round will reward these people with honours like the rest of the hangers on are.

'Do I have no heart'? I can hear the bile already. No I don't. Not when, by using the bereaved emotionally, more bogus and dangerous road safety policy is foisted on the public while drivers are targeted with unnecessary unwarranted jail terms I don't.

This story is about: 'Someone dies so someone must be arrested and imprisoned for it' 

Drivers we must reverse this nonsense.

Didn't it occur to the family that this death was as a result of road cycling. I make no apology for stating the obvious as drivers don't want anyone to die on our roads, least of all be involved in it.

Politicians who encourage road cycling must hang their heads. Instead of facing reality, they're attacking essential infrastructure against the community interests.

Friday 21 March 2014

Now 'illegal' courses for cyclists too?





Under what law can police offer courses for payment in lieu of judicial process? Speed awareness an idea of ACPO Ltd, with limited companies running courses for profit, we can find no legal authority for any of this. So another chance to earn money for police.  Once set up, it then requires offenders to perpetuate and keeps coppers cosily off the streets too. See story here.

Maybe the powerful cycle lobby will join us to stop this profiteering by coercion.

Shrill calls for more driver jail from Brake & Direct Line

and their supporters at Direct Line, are after jailing more drivers for
longer.

It seems that they have been in collusion with 'various MPs who have been speaking out in Parliament' they say. Oh so, as we pointed out that, Jack Dromey one week at PMQs, followed by Caroline Dinenage the next week, See our open letter to Caroline  obviously slotted in by David Cameron, seemed contrived grand standing on the basis of someone's death and so it now appears that there is an organised head of steam being generated against drivers yet again.

Neither BRAKE or Direct Line are experts in driving, prosecution or sentencing but to poll others just like them, is no way to produce expert answers on sentencing. Basically the blind leading the blind. So are we to determine jail sentences on that basis? I hope not.

Deplorable that uninsured driving and indeed disqualified driving is, neither are a cause of accidents and yet, according to these two, something to be considered in a fatal accident with automatic jail. There is of course the offence of causing death whilst disqualified with a jail option but not causing death because of being disqualified.

They also cite 'speeding' drivers and a driver who was doing 40 in a 30 zone. But we know that speeding causes nothing and most too fast driving occurs below the limits so on Brake's flawed rationale, had the guy been doing 29 MPH and still killed that would've been ok?

Let's get some rational perspectives. After 300 billion driver miles per year in the UK there's less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home and five times less than from NHS failure. So why aren't BRAKE, Direct Line and MPs not so interested in those facts? Isn't all death important? Of course but there is vested interest for Direct Line in driver punishment and an ideological anti driver agenda for the amateurs of BRAKE. What other explanation is there?

So from an action where there is only bent metal and no police interest one day, to exactly the same conduct with the unfortunate intervention of human flesh the next, fourteen years inside? Really?

But society, from expediency, encourages and needs this highly dangerous scenario of people mixing and mingling with major infrastructure also with opposing traffic too, and then jails people when it goes wrong! Drivers keep us all alive so we shouldn't be keen on jailing any except in extreme cases.

But what BRAKE and Direct Line don't worry about and their pollees don't seem to know, is that for jailing drivers for long terms, the burden of proof wouldn't be acceptable for murder, robbery, violence or any other long term offences. Do our MPs realise that?

At a time when the liberal elite oppose longer jail sentences generally and indeed are against capital punishment, the very same people are screaming for more driver incarceration. This is mostly about an ideologically based hatred of drivers and nothing else.

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Why do MPs miss the big picture on road safety policy?

Why is it that a week cannot pass without some focus or debate about road safety and drivers?
 
I will ignore the fact that Road Safety, is a multi billion pound industry very little of which actually prevents one single accident, to note that Stephen Phillips MP wants us to spend billions more on it. 6/3/14
 
It is so easy to pen a heart rending article on young road death but an MP should at least have a grasp of the whole issue and not just from the perspective of the pious profiteer.
 
So are things so bad that many millions of pounds need to be spent on young drivers?
 
Perhaps after 300 billion driver miles a year, that there is less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home, should indicate that there isn't much wrong with all drivers, young or old and we need to focus more on people's kitchens if we are really concerned about death and injury. There is also five times more death from NHS failure. Are those deaths less important then? What this tends to corroborate is my conclusion that all the interest in road safety, pious as it may be, is really about money.
 
Does Mr Phillips understand that the more we spend on young drivers, the more there is for profiteers and less for saving far more lives in the NHS or with more police, fire and ambulance staffing? Surely MPs should be able to take an over-view of a policy that they are supporting and the cost effectiveness of their hobby horses?
 
He has clearly fallen, hook, line and sinker for an ideologically based piece of academic nonsense. He quotes statistics that show that more young people die on the roads than from any other cause. Well yes. All young people are frequently passengers or drivers of cars but what other cause would we expect to kill young healthy people more? Drugs? Drinking? Old age? Illness? Murder? Suicide? I certainly hope that most death among young healthy people is by accident anywhere. So here we have an example of a politician falling for a profiteer's statistic hook line and sinker and even repeating it too.
 
What hope have we for genuine, not for profit, road safety when MPs don't know the subject.
 
Wishes
 
Keith Peat
Drivers' Union
  

Saturday 8 March 2014

What makes jail for drivers different.

Twice in successive weeks two MPs, Jack Dromey, Labour and Caroline Dinenage  were chosen by David Cameron to challenge at PMQs recent jail sentences on drivers and call for even more draconian measures against what has long been an exploited, bullied beleaguered class in our society.

Apart from the road safety profiteers that we are already exposing, there is also the green and ideologically motivated anti driver groups. Make no mistake they are just as vicious and wicked as their cousins in the Green Lobby. Anyone speaking truth and reason is evil in their eyes. As a drivers champion, I can certainly vouch for that. For my temerity in challenging both MPs about their comments, the anti driver bile and dishonesty is in full flood.

Let's face it both MPs did reserve their concerns about life and death road safety until noon on a Wednesday when the TV cameras were rolling. Does road safety only matter on Wednesdays then? But having done that, do they really expect experts in the subject to ignore it? Perhaps it may have been wiser to consult these matters off camera so that there is time for genuine research into a serious subject and avoid the charge of using someone's death to grandstand to and having the whole world see your crass comments.

So what is it that I am trying to impart to MPs who seek to comment on a subject in which they have no expertise, driving, prosecution, sentencing?

Well Caroline Dinenage, in a subsequent twitter, seemed to think that the sentence for death by dangerous driving was less than the 14 years that it is. Or was she suggesting that it should be increased from 14 years? The case she cited involved a sentence of 9 years so since that is 5 years short of the maximum, her argument to increase the maximum is a mystery. Or perhaps she was challenging the Judge in the case. If so, we are in very dangerous water indeed. Judges are at least able to listen to cases and consider them on an individual basis and thus sentence in consideration of all the circumstances, something that Mssrs. Dinenage & Dromey are not qualified to comment on surely.

A good example of why MPs shouldn't publicly interfere in these matters is when she told The House & the populist PM, that as there were two deaths, this just amounted to just over 4 years for each death. This wasn't a gunman who killed five people or two people with five or two separate and deliberate carefully aimed shots. When a road accident or crash occurs, any and all subsequent deaths are part of the same unintentional event. I am amazed that anyone should stand up in the House of Commons, especially at PMQs when the TV cameras are rolling and say something so un-researched on road safety and sentencing that it deserves to be challenged and worthy of the public scrutiny that her choice of time and venue invited. Luckily judges are trained to make these distinctions.

But let us really examine the offence of dangerous driving that MPs like Caroline clearly don't understand.

It is the only law, as well as its sister careless driving, that is based and relies totally on the evidence of hostile and unqualified witness subjective opinion. (See no fixed penalty for careless) In any other offence with long sentences, these witnesses would only be allowed to give evidence of fact and not opinion. The only witnesses of opinion would be expert witnesses in any other such trial. So for drivers, even the balance of evidence is severely reduced to the views of 'a competent driver'. In other words not an expert driver, but in effect any driver that drives. And on that we can put people away for 14 years. So you can be jailed for 14 years by the opinion of hostile non expert witness.

Caroline has now seen the anti driver bile, venom and viciousness all tweeting their support of her. Ironically these are an example of the kind of witnesses of whom I refer but as these people complain of how many idiot drivers there are, if they are correct then perhaps we should expect better evidence for jailing people then. So there is already hostility aplenty to convict drivers then. She has now seen examples of 'someone died so driver must be jailed' tweets.

But there is another kind of witness hostility which isn't anti driver at all. It is being hostile to anyone who does something you wouldn't try yourself. All drivers, suffer from that reaction including me. The slow driver who would never dream of overtaking the HGV is bound to resent those that do so because their own judgment was that it shouldn't be done. Should a crash occur, there will be a whole queue of judgemental hostile witnesses so there can never be a fair trial.

When I was on my advanced driver courses, in unmarked cars and totally exempt from the National Speed Limits, we had been trained to such a high level that at high speed we could come from nowhere and pass a whole queue of other drivers and disappear over the next hill. Those in the queue would have all had one thought. 'Mad man'. Now imagine us then being in a crash a couple of miles further on, those same people, who didn't witness the accident, would be called to give their hostile inexpert opinion of our manner of driving prior to the accident.

So MPs should ask whether long terms of jail should be based on the unqualified opinions of hostile witnesses at all before they call for more of it.

But please Mr Cameron, no more inexpert anti driver road safety grandstanding at PMQs. It isn't the time or place. 

Thursday 6 March 2014

What hope for profitless road safety?



Why is it that a week cannot pass without some focus or debate about road safety and drivers?
 
I will ignore the fact that Road Safety, is a multi billion pound industry very little of which actually prevents one single accident, to note that Stephen Phillips MP wants us to spend billions more on it. 6/3/14
 
It is so easy to pen a heart rending article on young road death but an MP should at least have a grasp of the whole issue and not just from the perspective of the pious profiteer.
 
So are things so bad that many millions of pounds need to be spent on young drivers?
 
Perhaps after 300 billion driver miles a year, that there is less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home, should indicate that there isn't much wrong with all drivers, young or old and we need to focus more on people's kitchens if we are really concerned about death and injury. There is also five times more death from NHS failure. Are those deaths less important then? What this tends to corroborate is my conclusion that all the interest in road safety, pious as it may be, is really about money.
 
Does Mr Phillips understand that the more we spend on young drivers, the more there is for profiteers and less for saving far more lives in the NHS or with more police, fire and ambulance staffing? Surely MPs should be able to take an over-view of a policy that they are supporting and the cost effectiveness of their hobby horses?
 
He has clearly fallen, hook, line and sinker for an ideologically based piece of academic nonsense. He quotes statistics that show that more young people die on the roads than from any other cause. Well yes. All young people are frequently passengers or drivers of cars but what other cause would we expect to kill young healthy people more? Drugs? Drinking? Old age? Illness? Murder? Suicide? I certainly hope that most death among young healthy people is by accident anywhere. So here we have an example of a politician falling for a profiteer's statistic hook line and sinker and even repeating it too.
 
What hope have we for genuine, not for profit, road safety when MPs don't know the subject.

 

Wednesday 5 March 2014

PCC listens to anti driver parochialism

Open letter to PCC Lincolnshire. 
 
Dear Mr Hardwick,

You may recall that before your election I wrote to offer you our independent and voluntary expertise on road safety policy and warned you of those with inexpert vested interests such as profiteers or parochial interest.

In view of that, I am very concerned that you have apparently been impressed with a case made out to you by a group called the Stanhope Road Traffic Calming Initiative who are after a 20 MPH speed limit zone as reported in this week's Target.

May I remind you that speed limiting should never be based on parochial aspiration or perceptions but on matters of fact. Do we really want a national speed limit policy based on a patchwork of local inexpert vested interest opinion?

If there is speeding at this location but no accidents, that usually means the limit is too low and wrongly set. It may sound crass but by increasing the limits, the speeding will be reduced and still no accidents. Job done.

Either way, if there is speeding then the limit is failing. Do you go out to break the law? To break speed limits? No. So why think everyone else does?

Take out the only justification for an anti driver attitude which is that they are all deliberately disobedient, the whole premise of the Speeding Industry, then there is only one cause that's left; the road layout or speed limit or both of them are at fault.

If the residents are genuinely concerned that the 30 limit isn't working, then try signing it better. I suspect that the real agenda is 20 limits come what may so don't be dragged into it.

Our voluntary expert advice is still there for you.


Open letter to Caroline Dinenage



 
Hi Ms Dinenage

I am very concerned about your call for higher sentencing for drivers.

My CV can be found on http://bit.ly/HhaOnE

I am a volunteer for genuine non profit road safety.

I am not familiar with the case but the driver was given nine years imprisonment.

Your comment in The House that this could be divided by two and amounted to only 4 years for each life lost was an extraordinary example of simplicity and crassness from a politician.

The anti driver, anti car lobby have removed the word 'accident' from the roads vocabulary. So for a start, sentencing is now based on anti driver ideology instead of what is fair.

But whatever the circumstances of this case, the driver wasn't a deliberate murderer, robber, assailant or thief. The fact is that had there not been the dreadful circumstance that human flesh was involved and just bent metal, from exactly the same actions, there would be just a fine and a ban. And that is why your comment was inappropriate. Had there been one death, two or three it was from the same event and same action and totally coincidental.

My concern is, by not treating this case in isolation and not on its own merit as you seemed to demand, there should be a general increase in jail terms for drivers was your message.

Perhaps you should reflect that there are 35 million drivers who are a massive voting block. and all of your constituents are either drivers or depend on them.

As it stands, at a time when sentencing generally has been getting softer, and for crimes your voters would wish to see sentences lengthened, you want your drivers jailed for longer do you?  

I would be very happy to assist you with road safety policy and driver prosecutions so that you have a fully enlightened knowledge of this life and death issue. It doesn't include cheap politics to play to the bereaved of victims who are not road safety experts through it, but pragmatism.

Please look through my site. So far no official body has been able to deny the facts therein. 

Wishes

Keith Peat

Drivers' Union

www.driversunion.co

Her response:
Dear Mr Peat,
 
As you say, you don't know the details of this case.
 
Before you make sweeping statements alleging an 'extraordinary example of simplicity and crassness from a politician', I would suggest that you take the time to familiarise yourself with the circumstances. 
 
This was not simply an unfortunate accident - the driver was travelling at twice the speed limit, on the wrong side of the road having consumed both Ketamine & Mephadrone.  I hope you will agree that driving under the influence of drugs of this strength is unbelievably irresponsible and puts the lives of innocent people at extreme risk, as demonstrated by this devastating case. 
 
In this case the 9 year sentence which the judge gave was the maximum possible when you take into consideration the 1/3 reduction for an early plea.  For that reason, I feel strongly that the existing 14 year maximum sentence for death by dangerous driving is unduly lenient and I will campaign for this punishment to be reviewed.
 
Kind regards
Caroline

And I respond:
Hi Ms Dinenage,
 
Thank you for your mail.
 
I did say that I was responding to your demands, irrespective of the case you were citing, and the generalisations of your demands for more jail for drivers.
 
The 'crassness' was to not understand, as I have explained, that unlike two carefully aimed deliberate shots, the two deaths in a road crash are part of the one unintentional event. In failing to concede that as valid, you are clearly unwilling to listen to an expert in prosecution and road accidents.
 
You have also failed to address the entirely different weight of evidence needed to jail drivers for long periods, compared to murderers and acts of robbery, violence and so on. Notwithstanding that new knowledge you are unmoved by it and prepared to publicly call for more incarceration of drivers on a knee jerk basis without any expertise or knowledge.Your tone and comments indicate that you seem to resent valid comment and criticism for doing so.
 
That you chose PMQs to do this in my mind was self promotion at the expense of drivers, road safety, justice and not least the victims too. I find that very cheap.
 
Wishes
 
Keith Peat.


 


 

Saturday 1 March 2014

Is your association interested in road safety truth or an imaginary dog?

This is being sent in one form or another to certain media, politicians and organisations that should know better and are not supporting drivers.

For many years now I have given much of my time and money voluntarily to seek for more genuine non profit and no ideologically based road safety policy.

I know that profit and ideology will never produce good road safety. On that basis we are being led to focus more on what doesn't cause accidents because of the money or green anti driver ideology, and miss real genuine causes of accidents. In fact I have identified the worst kind, of multi casualty accidents, as certainly one we could do much better with, as well as urban night time accidents; particularly involving the most vulnerable like walkers, cyclists and motor cyclists which I firmly believe are being ignored because, coincidentally, there is no profit from addressing them. 

I have realised that if our road safety is not profit based, - why should we be fooled by the piety expressed by those profiting or doing very nicely from it? – then this will also be fairer to drivers too.

I am not an apologist of idiot and reckless irresponsible drivers but I am opposed to the wholesale prosecution, profit based, of many thousands of perfectly safe drivers and the coercion on them to accept guilt by virtue of offers of lower penalty and worse, paying money to private companies for their services; the legality of which is now in question.

My CV and of my supporting colleagues in this makes me at least equal to any top police expert in the subject with the advantage of no vested interest or monetary influence to avoid the truth and the reality.

My aims are quite simple. To achieve the very best, not for profit, road safety. To stop all unnecessary prosecution of perfectly safe drivers and particularly any profiteering from that.

My slogan is: ‘Profit and ideology will never provide best road safety’

I am sure that if you are dispassionate, as a political party should be, you will not be able to fault any of the foregoing. The only people who do are, as you would expect, the profiteers and anti driver ideologists; believe me it is possible to be an anti driver driver as it is an anti people person.  You may even be one at heart but that should never affect your policy.

It seems to me that for some reason xxxxxx are unwilling to take advantage of  my work even though there is no open and overt official challenge to any of the facts and connections I have made; particularly my work on speed, why speeding occurs, and what causes accidents. Why should xxxxx avoid these things? County councillors are now starting to listen. I have addressed two separate committees in the last month.

One reason is that undoubtedly I am focusing on the profiteers and vested interests of road safety and challenging their propaganda. I am upsetting very powerful people. That should not worry a free Press in such a life and death issue with the added dimension of life changing prosecutions should it?

Another reason is the old chestnut of being too vocal, too outspoken. But this fraud road safety is all being achieved and built on the supine nature of UK’s drivers. The Alliance of British Drivers, which agrees with all of my research and conclusions has existed for some twenty years and in that time, driver oppression, taxation, penalties, and anti driver road policy, have got worse not better.  So clearly conciliation instead of direct open challenge is not an answer when dealing with profiteers and ideologists.

I am 73, and people are dying out there now. Hundreds of thousands of drivers are wrongly being over slowed, hampered and prosecuted and without any question, most of the prosecution can be shown and proved to be for income purposes alone. When, in every other aspect of sentencing and punishment which has been decreased generally, for drivers, not only have sentences been increased, including jail, but new reasons to jail drivers have been added. To achieve this, the word ‘accident’ has even been taken from the official vocabulary too. I do not see any of this as a popularity contest and time is not on my side. If the ABD are an example of a driver’s group that the officials and vested interests love, being nice has clearly failed road safety and the UK drivers so far.

So yes I do upset lots of people, but not most drivers. There are thirty five million of them and all sixty million of us cannot do without them, including you. So as a driver, what is not to like about what I do?

As a cyclist or a green ideologist there is much to despise about what I do, and indeed I do receive lots of bile, venom, personal abuse from those quarters. There are at least three parody twitter accounts just for that purpose and it worries me that you are following one of them. Let me remind you that, those groups are, by definition and by their dishonest nature, against the very aims that you so recently couldn't fault with above. Genuine non profiteering road safety and no unnecessary prosecutions of thousands of safe people with a profit motive too.

To address the green issues I have had to voluntarily read much environmental and climate science, and then adding what I read to what we all know and understand and would expect, in a nutshell ‘It’s The Sun wot duz it silly’ as any Joe Bloggs would expect and needs no consensus to tell him. ‘The Emperor has no clothes on’ So no I don’t believe in man made climate change, I know that CO2 is a life giving element and the Planet was much lusher and greener and vibrant when it was 4 times higher than it is now but in any case all of UK’s motor transport only produces 0.7% of all man made CO2. anyway. So yes I am hated by The Green Lobby. Are journalists entitled to allow a partisan stance affect their work though? An embargo on what makes them angry? Yes there are the George Monbiots but local press?

I have, as part of my work, had to address road cycling because as a very vocal minority, the cycling lobbyists have simply been bringing great attention to themselves recently. They have been making all sorts of demands ranging from more space- which means even less for drivers or if not, dedicated space at a cost of billions to us all- to more sentencing and longer jail terms for drivers and so on.

Cyclists have their own powerful ideological cross party parliamentary group. There was a recent Commons Transport Select Committee just to listen to their demands for road space, and public spending at the expense of drivers who are taxed to the tune of £50 Billion a year and not one single road safety or driving expert or dedicated drivers' group was invited to give evidence. I have now drawn this to the attention of the secretariat, showed the financial vested interest of one witness who pretended to be a pro driver expert, and have now forced a liaison with that important committee as a result. 
 
Surely The Cycle Lobby cannot have the floor all to them as they would seem to expect from their attacks on me?  So as a reasonable cyclist, and I have cycled for some sixty five years, at one time doing a daily fast sports style 30 mile London commute, I believe I represent the vast majority of cyclists who don’t seek to lobby against or make life harder for drivers.

Surely when any group makes so many demands from essential infrastructure and funding, and on the basis of the cycling casualties, it is the duty of any politician to be totally dispassionate and start from the basic.  The question it is their duty to ask is: ‘If there is so much wrong with road cycling, do we need it? Why do we need it?’ Of course it infuriates cyclists when I point this out. Having then thought of the question, clearly there is an answer.

The fact is that society wasn't built or sustained on manpower. We turned to the horse and camel thousands of years ago and expanded on fast, load bearing long distance non man powered transport, without which our current society wouldn't exist. Moving on to chariots, stages, wagons, traps, handsome cabs, coaches till they were eventually superseded by today’s motor transport.

An anti driver (anti as opposed to pro) pro cyclist campaigner has just published a book, 'Roads weren't built for cars'. They certainly existed and were used for thousands of years by fast, long distance, load bearing, non man powered transport with wheels, long before the bicycle was thought of. So they certainly weren't built for bicycles either. And this nonsense has been funded and supported with public money, mostly taken from car drivers.

The conclusion is a simple one. There are only two types of road user society must have and that’s walkers and drivers. The rest are indeed a non essential unnecessary liability and risk. Walkers and drivers are actually linked and paired closer, dependent on each other, than any other group is since both are essential for society's survival. Where would your paper be without both?

Are cyclists and politicians really suggesting that all the demands of the cycle lobby shouldn't require that simple question to be asked and answered? Does it make me such a bad man for asking it? ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’? Do I deserve so much hatred for raising a fair question and coming to a very obvious conclusion too?

Back to road safety, my main concern.

Road cycling is placing one’s unprotected body in the path of, mixing and competing with, lots of heavy fast moving essential machinery operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mental capacity. Whether cyclists like that statement or not, it is the reality of the situation and the concept. The concept is one where, if it were being suggested now in 2014, it would be called mad. It is undoubtedly dangerous and a dangerous choice. Under any other circumstances we would never place ourselves in such a position. We wouldn't choose to run across a field where someone was spraying machine gun bullets, despite our right to do so, in case we may get hit. Road cycling is that lottery. 

Again that observation, corroborated by road cyclists being maimed and killed daily, brings so much venom and bile in my direction. However when journalists and politicians deny the truth while people are dying and being maimed by a concept just for an ideology borders on the irresponsible. Attacking the messenger adds to their culpability.

I am not anti cyclist because I am one but I have to address their demands and claims, for road safety sake, honestly and factually and I believe I do.

I hope that you will now have a much greater understanding about my voluntary work and take advantage of it if only to balance vested interest spin, and false statements that are undoubtedly made about road safety. Please don’t allow your local police or even your personal instincts embargo any of it, as that wouldn't be in the public interest.

Seeking comfort from and patronising a dishonest, anti driver, anti genuine road safety imaginary doggy, adds very little to the credibility of those who do and especially their associations if they are not supporting the road safety sense and truths behind it.

I would be prepared to come and talk with you on the whole issue of road safety if it would help a better understanding.

Wishes

Keith Peat
www.driversunion.co